Benay Venuta (born Benvenuta Rose Crooke, January 27, 1910 – September 1, 1995) was an American actress, singer and dancer.

Early life

Born in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

, Venuta was a graduate of

Hollywood High School Hollywood High School is a four-year public secondary school in the Los Angeles Unified School District, located at the intersection of North Highland Avenue and West Sunset Boulevard in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles, California. Histo ...

. She attended

finishing school A finishing school focuses on teaching young women social graces and upper-class cultural rites as a preparation for entry into society. The name reflects that it follows on from ordinary school and is intended to complete the education, wi ...

Geneva Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Situa ...

and lived in London where she worked as a dancer before returning to the States. Her father was English, and her mother was Swiss-Italian.

Film

Venuta made her first screen appearance in the silent ''Trail of '98'' in 1928. She also appeared in '' Annie Get Your Gun'' (as Dolly Tate), '' Call Me Mister'', and ''

Bullets over Broadway ''Bullets Over Broadway'' is a 1994 American black comedy crime film directed by Woody Allen, written by Allen and Douglas McGrath and starring an ensemble cast including John Cusack, Dianne Wiest, Chazz Palminteri and Jennifer Tilly. The fil ...

''. (Another source says her first movie role was in ''

Repeat Performance ''Repeat Performance'' is a 1947 American film noir (with fantasy elements) starring Louis Hayward and Joan Leslie. The film was released by Eagle-Lion Films, directed by Alfred L. Werker, and produced by Aubrey Schenck. Plot On New Year's E ...

''.) The finale of ''Call Me Mister'' is a production number of “Love is Back in Business” staged by

Busby Berkeley Busby Berkeley (born Berkeley William Enos; November 29, 1895 – March 14, 1976) was an American film director and musical choreographer. Berkeley devised elaborate musical production numbers that often involved complex geometric patterns. Berke ...

, ending with four leading players on a precarious, high-rising disc surrounded by water fountains. Venuta is replaced here by a lookalike in the same clothes. Asked in the 1970s about this, she explained: “

Betty Grable Elizabeth Ruth Grable (December 18, 1916 – July 2, 1973) was an American actress, pin-up girl, dancer, model, and singer. Her 42 films during the 1930s and 1940s grossed more than $100 million; for 10 consecutive years (1942–1951) she reign ...

said, ‘I’m the star. I gotta do it.’ Dan Dailey was so drunk he didn’t care what he was doing.

Danny Thomas Danny Thomas (born Amos Muzyad Yaqoob Kairouz; January 6, 1912 – February 6, 1991) was an American actor, singer, nightclub comedian, producer, and philanthropist. He created and starred in one of the most successful and long-running sitc ...

said, ‘I’m on the way up. I gotta do it.’ Well, I didn’t gotta do it.”

Stage

Venuta made her

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

debut when she replaced

Ethel Merman Ethel Merman (born Ethel Agnes Zimmermann, January 16, 1908 – February 15, 1984) was an American actress and singer, known for her distinctive, powerful voice, and for leading roles in musical theatre.Obituary '' Variety'', February 22, 1984. ...

in the lead role of Reno Sweeney in

Cole Porter Cole Albert Porter (June 9, 1891 – October 15, 1964) was an American composer and songwriter. Many of his songs became standards noted for their witty, urbane lyrics, and many of his scores found success on Broadway and in film. Born to ...

's ''

Anything Goes ''Anything Goes'' is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. The original book was a collaborative effort by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse, heavily revised by the team of Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. The story concerns madcap ant ...

'' in 1935. The two remained close friends and co-starred in a revival of ''Annie Get Your Gun'' in 1966. Additional Broadway credits included '' By Jupiter'' (1942), '' Hazel Flagg'' (1953), and ''

Romantic Comedy Romantic comedy (also known as romcom or rom-com) is a subgenre of comedy and slice of life fiction, focusing on lighthearted, humorous plot lines centered on romantic ideas, such as how true love is able to surmount most obstacles. In a typic ...

'' (1979). Venuta's

summer stock In American theater, summer-stock theater is a theater that presents stage productions only in the summer. The name combines the season with the tradition of staging shows by a resident company, reusing stock scenery and costumes. Summer stock th ...

and regional theatre credits included ''

A Little Night Music ''A Little Night Music'' is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler. Inspired by the 1955 Ingmar Bergman film ''Smiles of a Summer Night'', it involves the romantic lives of several couples. Its title is a ...

'', ''

Bus Stop A bus stop is a place where buses stop for passengers to get on and off the bus. The construction of bus stops tends to reflect the level of usage, where stops at busy locations may have shelters, seating, and possibly electronic passenger ...

'', '' Gypsy'', ''

Come Blow Your Horn ''Come Blow Your Horn'' is Neil Simon's first play, which premiered on Broadway in 1961 and had a London production in 1962 at the Prince of Wales Theatre. Simon rewrote the script more than two dozen times over several years, resulting in a hit ...

'', ''

Auntie Mame ''Auntie Mame: An Irreverent Escapade'' is a 1955 novel by American author Patrick Dennis chronicling the madcap adventures of a boy, Patrick, growing up as the ward of his Aunt Mame Dennis, the sister of his dead father. The book is often desc ...

'', '' The Prisoner of Second Avenue'', '' Little Me'', and '' Pal Joey''.

Television

In 1958, Venuta was cast as private eye Bertha Cool in a television pilot for a series to be called ''Cool and Lam'', based on the novels by

Erle Stanley Gardner Erle Stanley Gardner (July 17, 1889 – March 11, 1970) was an American lawyer and author. He is best known for the Perry Mason series of detective stories, but he wrote numerous other novels and shorter pieces and also a series of nonfiction b ...

writing as A. A. Fair, but the pilot remains the only episode in existence. Television audiences knew her as

Jean Smart Jean Elizabeth Smart (born September 13, 1951) is an American actress. After beginning her career in regional theater in the Pacific Northwest, she appeared on Broadway in 1981 as Marlene Dietrich in the biographical play '' Piaf''. Smart was ...

's prim and proper mother-in-law Ellen Stillfield in the

sitcom A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ...

Designing Women ''Designing Women'' is an American television sitcom created by Linda Bloodworth-Thomason that aired on CBS from September 29, 1986, to May 24, 1993, producing seven seasons and 163 episodes. It was a joint production of Bloodworth/Thomason M ...

''. She also appeared on ''

That Girl ''That Girl'' is an American sitcom that ran on ABC from September 8, 1966 to March 19, 1971. It starred Marlo Thomas as the title character Ann Marie, an aspiring (but only sporadically employed) actress, who moves from her hometown of Brewster ...

'' in a 1968 episode titled, "The Seventh Time Around," as Lady Margaret "Trixie" Weatherby.

Radio

Venuta's ''Benay Venuta Hour'' "was a popular CBS radio program." She was a vocalist on such shows as ''Freddie Rich's Penthouse Party'', '' Duffy's Tavern'' and ''Take a Note''. In 1948, she was the host of ''Keep Up with the Kids'', a Mutual radio quiz show in which celebrity parents (

Roddy McDowall Roderick Andrew Anthony Jude McDowall (17 September 1928 – 4 October 1998) was a British actor, photographer and film director. He began his acting career as a child in England, and then in the United States, in ''How Green Was My Valley'' (1 ...

, Penny Singleton, Pat O'Brien) competed against their children.

Personal life

Venuta married Kenneth Kelley on October 20, 1935, in Ossining, New York. They were divorced on November 29, 1939. She had two daughters, Patty and Deborah, from her second marriage to film producer Armand Deutsch. She was married to character actor Fred Clark from 1952 to 1962. She died from

lung cancer Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma (since about 98–99% of all lung cancers are carcinomas), is a malignant lung tumor characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. Lung carcinomas derive from transformed, mali ...

in New York City on September 1, 1995, at age 84.

Date of birth and age at death

Several sources have given Venuta's birthdate as January 27, 1911. In her obituary, published in ''The New York Times'', her birthdate is listed as 1911, indicating she died at age 84. However, both the California Birth Index and the United States Censusfamilysearch
Retrieved March 20, 2012 show her birth at 1910, which would make her 85 in 1995, at the time of her death.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Venuta, Benay 1911 births 1995 deaths American female dancers Dancers from California American expatriate actresses in the United Kingdom American stage actresses American film actresses American radio personalities American television actresses American people of English descent American people of Swiss-Italian descent Actresses from San Francisco Deaths from lung cancer in New York (state) 20th-century American actresses 20th-century American singers American expatriates in Switzerland 20th-century American women singers Rosenwald family 20th-century American dancers